Think Big Blog

At ThinkBigSites.com our world-class Website Optimization Process encompasses cutting edge Blog Marketing Techniques, Advanced Linking Strategies, SEO strategies and high level business consulting. This unique one of a kind process enhances Search Engine rankings quicker and at a lower cost than 98% of our competition – we outperform our nearest competitors 10 to 1 regarding the time it takes to stimulate & elevate search engine presence – TBS focuses on corporate branding in the world wide blogosphere and strategic business blog marketing throughout industry. Our proven process will help brand your business as “the” preeminent authority within your market space. We will drive quality traffic to your site thereby creating new business opportunities for your organization. The SEO world is an ever changing, competitive market place where TBS is clearly a pioneering leader. Corporate blogging, link building, business and social networking and strategic blog marketing techniques are integral components that must be embraced by any company who is striving to attain that next level of success. Business entities who engage this technique will quickly be viewed as industry leaders – they will enjoy heightened corporate branding, enhanced web traffic and inquiries as well as increased sales, profits and productivity!

Should your business have a website? Today the answer is a definite YES! Your business needs a quality online presence with a image building business website design.

1. Your competitors are online. In the US alone, the number of people accessing the Internet is estimated at 211.1 million (2006) which means 70% of the population is online. They are actively searching for products and services. Who will they find?
2. Bring in local customers. Local businesses such as a restaurant or a dry cleaner need to post their hours of operation, a map so people can find them and even pricing such as menus and special services. Hint - People search using city name together with other keywords to locate local service.
3. Business Image. Project your business branding, mission and quality statements through your website. A small company can look like a huge substantial company on the Internet.
4. Communicate your message. With more and more people turning to the Internet, you can tell your story why your company and your products are better.
5. It’s cheaper than any other form of advertising. Compare the cost of advertising on the Internet to any other advertising medium. Business owners know the cost advertising in newspapers, yellow pages, magazines, TV, radio and direct mail. The Internet is a bargain.
6. Convenient for your customers. People can sit at home in the evening and look up details about your company… even when you are not working. They can look up information about your products and services.
7. Support your customers. How many times per day do you and your staff answer the same questions? Post answers to these frequently asked questions and your customers can get answers even when you are closed.
8. Sell products online. Set-up your own store and sell your products and services 24/7. You can accept credit cards on your own merchant account or use a service such as Paypal or others.
9. Find new customers or investors. Reach millions of prospective customers. People, who never thought about your company, will discover you through online searches.
10. Make it easy for your customers. The Internet is one of the first places a person who has access to a computer will go to get information.

This is the age old question. When developing Internet marketing strategies, you need good demographic and statistics to base your plan on. The Internet exists on millions of computers around the world and there is no person or company that controls it.  You can look at the number of domain names issued, but not all domain names issued are being used.

How big is the Internet? Luckily, a company called Netcraft is continually indexing websites on the Internet. As of April 2007, they had indexed 113,658,468 individual websites. This number is up 2.8% in one month (33.8% Annually). Netcraft is only reporting the websites that it has actually found.

How many people use the Internet? According to Internet World Stats there are 211,108,086 Internet users in the United States which is about 70% of the US population. World wide there are 1.1 billion Internet users or about 17% of the world population. This is based on information updated as of March 10, 2007.

How many searches do American’s make? According to Comscore Americans conducted 7.3 billion searches online in March 2007, up 14 percent versus March 2006. Google Sites captured 48.3 percent of the U.S. search market, gaining 0.2 share points from the previous month. Google Sites led the pack with 3.5 billion search queries performed, followed by Yahoo Sites (2.0 billion), Microsoft Sites (798 million), Ask Network (379 million), and Time Warner Network (368 million).

How many people use broadband? According to ClickZ Network The U.S. maintains the largest total number of broadband subscribers among countries tracked by OECD, with 29 percent of all broadband connections. U.S. broadband subscribers reached 58.1 million in December 2006. Worldwide there are a total of 197 million broadband subscribers worldwide.

Other interesting trends include the average display resolution is now at 1024×768 (54%) and although Internet Explorer is the dominant browser (58.7%), Firefox is continuing to increase market share (31.8%).

These statistics help shape website design and Internet marketing strategies for businesses.

Why would a company spend money to improve their Web site if no one can find it?
Is an outstanding Web site a guarantee of more business?
Do you have a Web site so that customers can find out about your products or services only or do you actually want them to do business with you thru it?
How easy is it for customers to actually order products/services from your Web site?
In this day of eBay purchases and online everything, unless your Web site can be easily found (pg 1 or 2 on Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc) and used to increase your bottom line, you are wasting your money on it. In order to maximize your Web expenses, you need a website optimization firm.
This type of company will:
- create/maintain a Website that is easy to use and navigate
- get your Web site noticed by the major Web search engines
- ensure that it is easy for customers to place orders
- know how to use and maximize information in the emerging field of Web log postings
If your current company doesn’t know how to do all of these things, fire them and get one that can because you are wasting your money.

How do you get more web site traffic? The answer is marketing diversification. Relying on one or two strategies is not a good idea. Some website marketing strategies may include reciprocal link building, blog marketing, email campaigns, pay per click ads, interesting graphic design, and good old fashioned seo. These strategies will definitely help to get you more website traffic, but there is more. Make sure you prominently display your companies website on all company literature and clothing /uniforms (if applicable). Attract new and existing customers to your site with special coupons, promotions, mail letters, post cards, news paper ads etc..When all of these strategies are used together, they will deliver outstanding results. However, do not expect to see results over night. Give it at least 3 months before you start measuring. In addition to more web site traffic, you will probably notice a big jump in rankings. This is because you have created a “Buzz” about your company and the search engines will take notice. Get started today in order to reap the benefits later!

As a design and web optimization firm, thinkbigsites.com focuses on creating websites that get results for our clients. A great business web design is only part of what is needed. A careful Internet marketing plan needs to guide the visitor during the buying process. Websites must be designed to take into account the 3 stages for online sales.

Qualify first time visitors. First time visitors need answers to general questions. Your website should guide them. What do they need? Will this work for them? If they decide that this isn’t want they need, provide links to other alternative offerings that you may have.

Convince Prospects.Prospects generally know some background about your company. Focus on benefits and advantages of your product or service. Prospects want to know if it is a good value and how they will benefit from purchasing. Show savings, flexibility or better results that they will achieve.

Get visitors to act. The desired action you want from visitors should be clear from the instant they arrive. If your website is a lead generation website then the lead collection form should start on the home page. If your website is an online store, display products with buy now buttons on the home page.

By now you may be thinking, what makes thinkBIGsites.com different from any other website optimization firm? Many firms focus on traditional SEO practices, Blog Marketing, Linking Strategies, Website Design and Development and even business consulting. But ask yourself one question…How many website optimization firms do you know of that are experts in all of the above mentioned fields? Still thinking aren’t you. That’s because we are the only website optimization firm that puts such an extreme emphasis on all (not just some or one) of these crucial components. The management team at ThinkBIGsites.com realizes and understands that in order to achieve the highest level of website optimization, every one of these different components must not be overlooked or taken for granted. If you drop the ball in any one of these areas, you may not get the results you are looking for. A fully optimized website should be able to streamline corporate workload, increase profits, increase customer loyalty and create a professional corporate image that both your employees and customers feel comfortable with. Anything less is just not acceptable.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to all of the families & friends who lost loved ones in the Virginia Tech tragedy.

When you hear the term Website Optimization, you may be thinking of high rankings or increasing web traffic to your site. ThinkBIGsites.com is a website optimization firm that focuses on much more than just increasing traffic or high rankings.

We take a great deal of pride in providing an “end to end” solution that is geared towards increasing profits through website design, development and optimization. It is this unique methodology that makes us a one of kind website optimization firm. Most other firms generally focus on high rankings and/or web traffic. Although increasing web traffic will help get you noticed, it may not correlate into bottom line results. Knowing, understanding and analyzing our clients business model, gives us the ability to deliver outstanding results. Our highly trained staff takes the time to learn and understand the market and customer psychology of each and every client. This is very important because not just any web traffic will help your business. Our website optimization process is designed to bring you paying customers, not just visitors. When potential customers arrive at your website, they must quickly understand they are at the right place. Make sure your home page or landing page displays a crisp and clear message about what you can do for your potential visitor. I always say K.I.S.S.  Keep It Simple Stupid! Keep this in mind and you should be fine.

Blog marketing is a relatively new term that has added an exciting dimension to (SEO) Search Engine Optimization strategies. An expert blog marketing campaign can literally move your company from virtual obscurity to one with an international presence practically over night. This new ability to move quickly up the ladder on the various search engines like Google and Yahoo had previously been unheard of until recently which is why ThinkBigSites.com has become a force to be reckoned with. Without a strong blog marketing strategy, companies that are languishing fruitlessly on pages 77 of Google or 43 of Yahoo would never in a million years be found by a potential customer searching for the key words that would match that company’s products and or services. Instead the potential customer would generally never search deeper than page 3 on any of the search engines to find what they were looking for. Because of this certainty, a good blog marketing campaign is essential to your business - Period! Blogging can move your company from page 77 to page 1 or 2 on Google within 60 - 90 days and forever change your business for the better. Blog Marketing will change the internet significantly because website owners have already or will be forced to employ this new tactic because the future of their businesses depend on it to increase profits and productivity.

The power of Blog Marketing can be tremendous when used correctly. Before you begin to blog, take look at these 5 very important tips that will help your business get noticed in a very professional manner.

1. Know Your Market. Gather information about what people are saying about you or your competitors. Be aware of how you are being praised or trashed on others blogs. This will give you the ability to respond fast and accordingly.Remember, it costs absolutely nothing for an angry customer or ex-employee to create a blog that may wind up ranking higher than yours.
2. Become an Active Member of the Blogosphere. Not only is it very important to post relevant blog entries on a regular basis, but it is equally as important to comment on other blogs that are directly related to your business. This will help establish you as an industry leader and will generally get others to post comments on your blog.
3. You May Want to Advertise on Other Blogs. Since almost every blog is different in terms of size, layout and content, there are many different ad strategies that could help. BlogAds and Pheedo are two of the most well known advertising networks used today. This will definitely cost you a few bucks,but could obviously be well worth it. Just remember that bloggers are very savvy and you should always make sure your blog is contextually relevant to your ad.
4. Let Others in Your Company Post. Allowing trusted employees to post blog entries on your corporate blog, lets customers and/or prospects know that you are HUMAN. Much of the internet is cold and unfriendly. Corporate blogging and blogging in general is quickly changing the cold and unfriendly internet. 
5. Measure Your Results. Pay very close attention to what happens to your website after you start blooging. Check your web rankings on a regular basis, monitor web traffic and keep your eyes and ears wide open when dealing with new or existing customers. You will be amazed at how quickly blog marketing works. Don’t be surprised if you notice a difference in 30 days.